21 Bells
by phonusbalonus
Summary: On an important and painful anniversary, Amanda opens up to Olivia about her relationship with Nick/A ROLLARO themed tear fest awaits you.


**Warning: This story centers around a character's death and deals with some _very_ difficult emotions. It may be a difficult read for some. Read at your own risk. I am not a doctor. The medical situations described below may not be entirely accurate.**

* * *

**June 15th, 2016**

June 16th was a significant and painful day for the Amaro family. Amanda didn't know how often Cesaria or Gil went to visit Nick, but she was pretty sure that they would pay their respects on the one year anniversary of the day when Nick had left them. Accordingly, Amanda decided to make her own visit to Holy Cross on the fifteenth.

June 16th, 2015 would forever be etched in Amanda's mind. Olivia had sent Nick and Fin to re-interview Deidre Pierce, a rape victim who had recanted due to internal pressures from the gang that her older brother-Jimmy a.k.a 'Flip'-belonged to. When Deidre reported her rape, she had pointed the finger at a senior gang member who answered to the name of 'Two Shakes'. According to Fin, he and Nick had been talking to Deidre outside for just over a minute when the sound of gunfire rang out.

_Officer down…officer shot at 455 East 118__th__ St…  
_  
Amanda heard Fin's frantic voice come in over the radio. Everyone in the squad room stopped what they were doing and listened for more details, but none came. Amanda had never heard her tough as nails partner sound so frightened. Who was the officer? Was it someone who she knew?

Amanda wanted to see if she could get a hold of Fin, to get more information on the shooting, but when Olivia stormed out of her office with a look of sheer dread on her face, Amanda decided against reaching for her phone. Olivia's ashen countenance caused Amanda's breath to catch in her throat. Her fists–which were resting on her desk–tensed up. It _was_ an officer who they knew, of that Amanda was now sure. Olivia approached Amanda's desk, bent her head down until it was inches away from Amanda's nose, and whispered so that no one else in the squad room could hear what she said.

"Nick has been shot. Fin will ride with him in the ambulance to Mt Sinai. Let's go."

Olivia moved her face away from Amanda's head and stood up properly, watching the younger woman clasp her right hand over a lipstick stained mouth as she processed the horrifying information. Amanda swallowed hard, wells starting to form in the corners of her eyes. She sprang to her feet and looked at Olivia with a wild, fearful expression.

"Let's go," urged Amanda.

Olivia turned and hurried down the hallway, towards the elevator, Amanda close at her heels.

"Liv, is it bad?"

Olivia punched the button for the first floor before swiveling around to face Amanda.

"It's bad, Amanda."

_It's bad, Amanda. _That was just one of the _many_ slices of June 16th that Amanda would never forget.

* * *

When Olivia and Amanda reached Mt. Sinai, Fin was pacing in the waiting room, blood spatter on his clothing, hands, and face–Nick's blood. A slew of uniformed officers huddled in tight groups throughout the waiting room and outside of the hospital, waiting to hear more news about their wounded fellow officer.

"How long have you been here?" Olivia asked, placing a pacifying hand on Fin's shoulder.

"I don't know, maybe three or four minutes." Fin looked at Olivia and then at Amanda. He desperately wished that he had better news for them. "He was shot near the heart and in the left arm. It's really serious."

Two bullets? One near the heart? Amanda and Olivia finally understand the full gravity of Nick's condition.

"We were just standing outside talking to Deidre and then we heard shots. Nick threw himself in front of her. I turned around and saw this beat up blue Nissan driving away, but then I realized that Nick was down, and. . ." Fin lost his words for a moment. Both Olivia and Amanda would remember that day as one of the few times when they would ever see Odafin Tutuola cry.

Neither Olivia nor Amanda were surprised to hear about Nick's heroic act. Of course _their_ Nick would so something like that.

"And IAB was going to take away his badge. A lot of cops wouldn't have been so selfless." This came from Olivia who was trying her best to keep her emotions in check. She was distraught, but she was also mad at herself for sending Fin and Nick out to Deidre's place that morning.

"It's got to be Flip's crew," Amanda said. "His friend Duane drives a blue Nissan. They probably wanted to scare Deidre to keep her from testifying. Maybe somebody told them that Nick and Fin were there."

"Somebody could have been watching the house," Olivia added before steering the conversation back to Nick. "Was Nick conscious at all on the ride over?"

Fin shook his head despondently. "Naw, Liv, there was so much blood, there was too much going on. He wasn't conscious at all from what I could tell. I mean I didn't see his eyes open or anything. I don't know." Again, Fin was at a loss for words.

"He's going to be alright Fin, okay?" Amanda said, trying to sound brave.

Of course Olivia was concerned about Nick, but this shooting was also tied to a current SVU case, one that _she_ was in charge of. "Flip's crew still hangs out in that apartment on First Avenue, right?"

"The last time that we paid him a visit, yea. It's near a car wash," Amanda said.

Olivia started to form a plan of action. "We need to pay Flip another visit as soon as possible. I am going to get Dodds on the phone. We need to get a team together and bring Flip in. The Nissan is enough to hold them overnight."

Fin and Amanda eavesdropped on Olivia's conversation with Deputy Chief Dodds. She talked quickly and sharply. Four minutes later, everything had been settled. Dodds was going to put a rush on the arrest warrant; they would be able to storm Flip's apartment within the next half hour. Olivia ended the call and rejoined Fin and Amanda's circle.

"Once I know Nick is alright, I am going to head over to Flip's apartment to give them extra backup," Amanda said.

Olivia was quick to shake her head no. "Amanda, Dodds specifically asked me to not have any SVU personnel at the scene when they make the arrest."

"Why?" Fin asked.

"We work with Nick. We are close to him. If shots are fired for any reason, they need to be fired in self-defense rather than out of revenge."

"Is that what Dodds thinks of us?" Amanda scoffed.

"I'd like to shoot the punk that did this, but I wouldn't actually do it," Fin said.

"Just stay away from places where Flip's gang hangs out until this settles down, okay?" Olivia cautioned them again.

At that moment, a tall, thin, and nearly bald man in his early 50's, wearing forest green scrubs rounded the corner. He looked up apprehensively at the curious eyes of the many who stared at him. Olivia wasn't in uniform, but somehow her poise and authoritative air told the man that she was the person to talk to.

"I am Dr. Liditz. Who is the most senior officer here?"

Olivia stepped forward. "I'm Sergeant Olivia Benson. Detective Amaro works under me."

For a brief moment, Dr. Liditz looked past Olivia at the other officers, who were waiting for him to speak. His heart was beating violently and his palms were sweaty. "Sergeant Benson, I am sorry to have to tell you this. We did _everything_ that we possibly could in an attempt to save Detective Amaro's life, but he had lost far too much blood. The bullet pierced his left ventricle and he had entered cardiac tamponade before he arrived at the hospital."

"Cardiac what?" Fin spit out.

"When excessive fluid builds up around the heart muscle, a great deal of pressure is placed _on_ the heart. It can't function normally, so the rest of the body doesn't receive enough blood and as I said, Detective Amaro had _already_ lost so much blood."

"What are you saying?" Olivia demanded even though everyone _knew_ what Dr. Liditz was saying.

"Detective Amaro died approximately two minutes ago. I am so sorry."

Amanda felt her knees buckle and grabbed Fin's arm to keep from falling down. How could this be happening?

"There is nothing more you can do?" Fin asked.

Dr. Liditz shook his hair deprived head and softy whispered a firm "No."

The team barely had time to process what the doctor had told them when Nick's mother, Cesaria, rushed up to Olivia, wringing her hands, trying to fight back tears. Amanda and Fin looked at Cesaria and then exchanged knowing glances. This was going to be terrible.

"Where is Nick? Is he okay?" Cesaria was beside herself.

Dr. Liditz and Olivia took Cesaria to a far corner of the waiting room and gave her the heartbreaking news. Fin stood with an arm around a shell-shocked Amanda as they painfully watched Mrs. Amaro clutch at Olivia, while wailing for her dead son.

Amanda bawled liked a baby in Fin's arms. Many of the female officers and some of the male officers, who had gathered at the hospital were also crying. Amanda didn't feel as if she were giving anything away by mourning so openly in a public place. However, when her tears had momentarily run dry, Fin looked at her with a hesitant and questioning concern.

"Were you and Nick still. . ." Fin didn't need to finish his question. Amanda knew what her partner was asking. Suddenly, the dramatic scene in the waiting room was all too much for her.

"I need to get out of here," Amanda mumbled. She broke away from Fin and bolted out of the hospital as fast as her legs would carry her.

* * *

Later that day, Dodds and a group of fifteen highly trained officers arrested Flip and two of his friends–Scotty and Duane–at the First Avenue apartment. The three men were playing video games and drinking 24 ounce cans of Yuengling when the door was busted down. Police seized several guns from the lair, hoping that one of them would match the weapon that had ended Nick's life. They found the Nissan in question parked a few blocks away from the apartment.

Dodds put each man in a different room, grilling them separately so that they couldn't sync up their stories, if they hadn't done so already. At first, all three men denied knowing anything about the shooting and claimed that they had been playing video games at home all day. Flip and Duane were mostly silent and didn't offer much information outside of the video game alibi. Scotty, on the other hand, was belligerent and loud mouthed, trash talking the NYPD with every other sentence that came out of his mouth. No matter how much the interrogating detectives tried to make Scotty slip up, he too, stuck to the video game alibi.

But when a ballistics report on the guns that had been seized came back from the lab, stories started to change. Striation patterns on bullets fired from a .357 Sig pistol, which has been found in a bedroom dresser drawer, matched the bullets recovered from Nick's left arm and chest.

When presented with the ballistics report, both Flip and Duane gave up Scotty as the shooter. According to them, the original plan had only been to scare Diedre. They said that they didn't know two police officers were at her residence before setting out for her place.

"We noticed the police when we got closer to the house. Scotty got this crazy look in his eyes and said, 'Hey, isn't that the cop who shot that kid?' We thought that he was just going to shoot off some rounds to scare them, but he aimed the pistol right at Detective Amaro. It was like Scotty was _trying _to hit him."

This was from Duane's testimony at the trial. Scotty got ninety years to life. Duane and Flip got forty years a piece.

Since Nick had been killed in the line of duty, he was eligible for a full military style funeral, honor guard and all. Cesaria has chosen Holy Cross Cemetery in Brooklyn because Nick's maternal grandparents were buried there and because it was a Catholic cemetery.

Amanda honestly didn't know how she could attend Nick's funeral as a mourner. To stand passively by and twiddle her thumbs would be painful and beyond awkward. She requested to be part of Nick's honor guard, but _only _on the condition that she would _not_ be relieved of her watch at regular intervals as was the protocol for casket watch. She was prepared to stand by Nick's side for the _full_ five hour duration. Her request was granted under a provision which placed another officer "in the wings" in the event that she could not fulfill her duty and for when she needed to use the restroom.

Thankfully, the gunfire had spared Nick's face. Amanda tried not to look at his resting form over those long five hours, although when she did, she was struck by how peaceful he looked, _more _peaceful than she had ever seen him look before. Fin had given the eulogy and had even managed to make the mourners laugh–not an easy thing to do given the circumstances. Sonya–Nick's sister–had given the more personal eulogy, the one that had everyone crying buckets of salt water.

Maria, Nick's almost ex-wife, had flown in from California with her and Nick's young daughter, Zara. Zara tried to put on a brave face, but cried off and on throughout the day. At the luncheon, she had planted herself on the back porch, refusing to eat or socialize with any of the guests. Amanda had wanted to sit down next to Zara and offer some piece of wisdom that would make things easier for her, but everything that Amanda thought of sounded stupid. In the end, Amanda had hugged Zara as tightly as she could and told her how sorry she was.

Maria had decided that Nick's mother should receive the flag from his coffin, something which Amanda had been very pleased about. It's not that she thought that _she_ deserved the flag, but she sure as hell knew that Maria didn't. To everyone's surprise, Cesaria presented the symbol of Nick's service to his eleven year son Gil, at the luncheon. The boy had cried unabashedly while clutching the folded flag in trembling hands, before running to an upstairs bedroom where his tears would not be seen.

Nick's father had been in attendance too. Amanda had never met the man but she had heard about his gregarious, overbearing ways–both from Nick and from others who _had_ met him. Amanda observed Nick Sr. at various points in the day, looking for any glimmer of the abusive narcissist who had made Nick's life a living hell, but all that she saw was a broken, old man grieving for a son who had been taken too soon. Honestly, Amanda felt sorry for him.

Throughout the service, Amanda had wanted to yell at Nick for leaving her. When she was alone in her apartment, after the funeral, she _did_ yell at him. Amanda felt so lost. She had no piece of paper or blood tie that entitled her to anything of Nick's. The most that she could do was play the role of grieving colleague.

Nick had spent the night with Amanda, the evening before he had been shot. He had brought _good_–not the greasy shit from the place on her block–Mexican food with him, which they had shared while watching Jeopardy and drinking beer. The weather was finally turning warm and they had discussed maybe going to the beach in July. Amanda had fallen asleep with her head on Nick's bare chest, listening to his heart beat. And now he was cold. It didn't seem real.

Once the hubbub surrounding the funeral had faded away, a pall hung over the squad room for some time. The silence was such a contrast to the chaos swirling around inside of Amanda's head. She had decided to continue on at SVU, but had been a down right bitch to James Morales–the officer who now sat at Nick's desk–for a solid two months before her grief had abated enough to give Morales a chance. Morales was a good detective and as time went on, Amanda fell into a rhythm at work again, even though her thoughts were never far from Nick.

* * *

"I thought that I might find you here."

Amanda turned around to see Olivia walking towards her, with a modest bouquet of geraniums planted in her gloved hands. Once by Amanda's side, Olivia bent down and solemnly placed her bouquet to the left of Nick's headstone, next to the white lilies that Amanda had brought.

"I wanted to pay my respects, and thought that tomorrow might be more of a family day, you know?" Amanda said.

"Yea, I thought the same thing."

"Where's Noah?" Amanda asked, referring to Olivia's two-year old son.

"A friend is watching him."

Amanda nodded her head, but didn't say anything. Olivia noticed the red, puffy rims that encircled Amanda's eyes. "It's hard to believe that it has been one year already. Where does the time go?" Olivia tried to make light conversation.

"I don't know."

"Do you come here often?" Olivia asked tentatively. How far could she dig before she hit rock?

Amanda wanted to be polite and didn't want to create a scene at Nick's graveside, of _all_ places. She wasn't _that _much of a heathen. "When Cragen was in charge, Nick and I had our share of fights, but during the last year or so, he and I became friends. I confided in him a lot."

"He cared a lot about you."

Amanda tried to shrug off Olivia's comment, even though it had touched a tender part of her. "He cared about everyone," Amanda said simply, trying to control the emotion in her voice.

"But _especially_ about you," Olivia added quickly, not to be deterred. Again, Amanda tried to brush off Olivia's line of conversation. Even though it was a warm seventy-five degrees, Amanda felt a chill come upon her. She wrapped her arms around her thin frame. Olivia was not ready to throw down her shovel just yet. "Amanda, I _know_ that Nick was more than just someone who you confided in."

"He was a good friend," Amanda said, without looking at Olivia. She didn't like where this was going.

"You loved him." Olivia's words weren't a question; they were a statement which she felt very little, if any, doubt about. When Olivia saw the corners of the blonde's mouth tighten, she knew that she had spoken the truth. Olivia could dig further, but decided to let Amanda pick up the shovel where Olivia had dropped it.

Amanda bit her bottom lip, wrapping her arms around her torso even more tightly. Nick had been gone for a year. Why conceal what didn't need to be hidden anymore? She and Nick couldn't get in trouble for the truth now. Amanda knew that Olivia and Nick had been friends. Perhaps Olivia had the answers that Amanda had been searching for? Amanda finally had the courage to face her commanding officer.

"Did he talk to you about me?"

"Never, he thought that I didn't know."

"How did you figure it out?"

"I've been a detective for over twenty years. I've also talked with Fin and Munch."

Amanda was simultaneously surprised and not surprised. She took a small step closer to Olivia.

"I knew that Fin had figured it out, but Munch?"

"Cragen too. We all knew."

"Were we that transparent?"

Olivia allowed herself to laugh openly at Amanda's naiveté. "To those who know and care about you, yes." Amanda felt her face turn red with embarrassment. She and Nick had thought that they covered their tracks well. How could they have been foolish enough to think that their co-workers–all trained and seasoned detectives–wouldn't see through their cover? Olivia had known the whole time, yet _never_ said a word. "The more he chased Maria, the further she ran. Nick almost lost everything because he had pushed too hard with her. He needed someone and something to hold onto." Olivia paused when she noticed fresh tears fall from Amanda's eyes. Why did love have to hurt so much? "I'm glad that you were there for him."

A few more tears dropped from Amanda's eyes. The sun glided behind a cloud and the two women now stood under a shadow. "I come here at least once a month," Amanda admitted. She didn't know why that had slipped out. Amanda's revelation did not surprise Olivia. Would anything surprise Olivia?

"Have you had lunch yet?" Olivia asked.

"No," Amanda replied.

"I know an Italian restaurant that is about a fifteen minute drive from here. They have excellent lasagna. Why don't we go eat? It will be my treat."

"Okay," Amanda said absentmindedly.

The sun emerged from behind the clouds, throwing a warm and welcoming blanket of light over the entire area where Amanda and Olivia stood. Olivia shaded her eyes with her right hand and peered up at the sun, smiling. "I'm glad that the sun came out for Nick today."

"Actually, he loved rainy days," Amanda said gently, while wiping away a few tears which still clung to her chin."

Olivia took a long hard look at her companion. She wanted to help Amanda, but didn't really know how to. "I don't pretend to know the full extent of what your relationship was with Nick, but I do know what it feels like to lose someone who you love deeply. You'll always miss him, but this pain will fade and you _will_ go on. Nick wouldn't want you to be standing here feeling sad. That much I _do_ know about my former partner."

Amanda knew that Olivia meant well, but she wasn't in the mood to hear a positive thinking speech on that particular day. Amanda lightly shook her head to acknowledge that she had heard Olivia and said, "Let's go to lunch."

* * *

**A/N: I now apologize for tearing your heart out. Reviews are appreciated, both good and bad.  
Also, I apologize for any typos which I didn't catch.**


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